Hardened by books and an active life
Great in name, goods, troops
Made to raise your voice in
Westminster.
MORTIMER:
Would you warm your soup on Etna?
You have mistook. He who sets himself
To pluck a cock, to eat it, or because
Its crowing jarred, to such a man the urge may come
At last, his hunger sated, out of love of skinning
To take the hide from the tiger. Have you
Thought of this?
ARCHBISHOP:
Let Westminster be rased to the ground
This peasant shall no longer plague us.
MORTIMER:
My lords, for your relief, this I propose:
We demand his exile, signed and sealed.
ARCHBISHOP hastily:
You speak to it in Parliament. In England’s
Name we thank you, Earl Mortimer.
That you have sacrificed your learned studies
To England’s weal.
Exeunt archbishop and peers.
MORTIMER solus:
Because some bonnets scrape the mud
Before a hound
These men will thrust our island
Underground.
London
Mortimer, Archbishop, Lancaster, the two lords.
LANCASTER:
The King of England shows the Earl of Cornwall
His catapults.
ARCHBISHOP:
It is to us he shows them.
LANCASTER:
Are you afraid, Archbishop?
MORTIMER:
Ah, this betrays our baseness, Lancaster.
Were the ancients present at this play
He’d long been out the bosom of the king
This butcher’s son and hanged on a cur-gibbet
Swollen with venom, toothless.
LANCASTER after a catapult shot:
Well-aimed, Edward. That shot gives us
Pause for thought. The catapults
Are Edward’s long arms. He’ll reach
You in your Scottish castles, Winchester
With his catapults.
Enter Queen Anne.
MORTIMER:
Whither walks your majesty so fast?
ANNE:
Deep into the forest, gentle Mortimer
To live in grief and baleful discontent
For now my lord the king regards me not
But dotes on Gaveston.
He hangs about his neck and when I come
He frowns as who should say, ‘Go whither thou wilt
Seeing I have Gaveston.’
MORTIMER:
My lady, you are widowed by
A butcher’s son.
ARCHBISHOP:
How Mortimer consoles my lady!
LANCASTER:
She is devoted to this wicked Edward.
It is a piteous lot. God save her.
ANNE:
Oh Mortimer, can there be greater bitterness
Than this: the French king’s sister is a widow
Yet no widow; since her husband lives
More wretched than a widow; it were better
For the earth to cover her, her steps are shadowed
By abuse, wife and yet no wife:
For her bed is cold.
MORTIMER:
Madame, too much weeping spoils the skin.
Widowed nights are ageing. Rank feelings
Tire the body. My lady, gratify yourself
Elsewhere. Raw meat
In general needs moistening.
ANNE aside:
O base Edward, how you shame me
That I dare not strike him in the face
But must stand silent, naked
When he falls on me in his lust.
Aloud:
You wrong me in my sorrow, Mortimer.
MORTIMER:
Lady Anne, return to court.
Leave these matters to the Peers; before the new moon
This butcher’s son shall ship to Ireland.
ARCHBISHOP:
My lady, for us this Gaveston’s
A thorn in the eye. We’ll pluck him out.
ANNE:
But do not lift your sword against your king.
Edward is so far from us. Ah, my love
Betrays me. How could I take me to the forest, lords
If you should fall upon King Edward?
In distant lanes I’d hear him threatened
And straight return, to be beside him in
His danger.
LANCASTER:
Blood will be shed e’er Gaveston goes hence.
ANNE:
Be threatened I will drag out my life
And let him have his Gaveston.
LANCASTER:
Patience, my lady.
MORTIMER:
My lords, escort we the queen back
To Westminster.
ANNE:
For my sake
Forebear to levy arms against the King.
Exeunt omnes.
Enter Gaveston.
GAVESTON:
The mighty Earl of Lancaster, the Archbishop
Of Winchester and with them the Queen
And some few carrion from old London
Are plotting something against
Certain people.
London
GAVESTON alone in his house, writes his will:
Through misunderstanding, on an ordinary Thursday
And from no desire for slaughter
Many a man’s been wiped out, painfully.
And so I write, not knowing
What it was in me, or was not
Made this Edward, who is King now
Never leave my side. For my mother
Found nothing in me that was other than
Most commonplace, not goitre, not white skin –
And so I write, since I know nothing
Save, dull-witted as I am, this:
That nothing helps the life of one whom all wish dead
And so there’s naught can save me in this London
Which I shall never leave again
Except feet first
My will.
I Daniel Gaveston, in my seven and twentieth year
A butcher’s son, dispatch’d by favourable
Circumstance, blotted out by too much luck, leave
My clothes and boots to those are with me
At the end:
To the foolish wives of St James’s street
The Abbey of Coventry, to the good
Ale-drinking folk of England my narrow grave
To good King Edward, my friend
God’s mercy.
For it grieves me much I have not simply
Turned to dust.
9 MAY 1311: BECAUSE KING EDWARD REFUSES TO SIGN THE BANISHMENT OF HIS FAVOURITE GAVESTON A WAR BREAKS OUT WHICH LASTS FOR THIRTEEN YEARS.
Westminster
Mortimer, Lancaster, Archbishop, peers sign the document in turn.
MORTIMER:
This parchment seals his banishment.
Enter the Queen and Gaveston, who sits beside the King’s throne, Kent, then Edward.
EDWARD:
What, are you moved that Gaveston sits there?
It is our pleasure: we will have it so.
LANCASTER:
Your grace does well to place him at your side
For nowhere else the new earl is so safe.
ARCHBISHOP:
Quam male conveniunt!
LANCASTER:
A kingly lion fawns on crawling ants.
FIRST LORD:
How this fellow sprawls upon his chair!
SECOND LORD:
A sight for London’s citizens to feast their eyes:
King Edward with his two wives.
Parliament is opened to the people.
KEN
T:
Speak, Roger Mortimer.
MORTIMER:
After Paris had eaten bread and salt
In Menelaus’ house, Menelaus’ wife – so
Ancient chronicles relate –
Slept with him and he took her
In his hammock sailing home to Troy.
Troy laughed. To Troy it seemed laughable.
And to Greece it seemed but just this willing piece of flesh
Helen by name, should be returned
Since she was a whore, to her Greek husband.
Only Lord Paris, naturally, made trouble, said
It was her time of month. Meanwhile came ships.
Greek. Ships that multiplied
Like flies. One morning Greeks broke into
Paris’ house to haul the Greek whore
Out. From his window
Paris roared this was his house
This his castle and the Trojans, judging
Him not wrong, applauded, sniggering.
The Greeks still lay fishing on their drooping
Sails until, in an ale-house
On the water-front, someone bloodied
Another’s nose, pretending
It was for Helen’s sake.
Before they knew it in the days that followed
Many hands grasped many throats.
From broken ships men speared other men
Like fishes as they drowned. By the moon’s first quarter
Many were missing from their tents and in the houses
Many were found headless. The crabs
Were very fat those years in the river
Scamander, but went uneaten. Spying
The wind’s direction early
Fretting only if the fish that night would nibble
By midnight, of confusion or design, they all
Were dead.
About ten o’clock still to be seen
With the faces of men
About eleven
Forgetting mother tongues, Trojan
Lost sight of Troy and Greek of Greece.
Many felt their men’s mouths changing
Into tiger’s jaws. At midday plunged their teeth
In their neighbour’s tender flesh
Who roared pain.
Yet had there been on the embattled walls
One who knew
To call them by name, by kind
Many had stopped short. It had been better
Had they disappeared still fighting
On their quickly rotting ships
Sinking beneath their feet, before nightfall
Unnamed.
They killed each other with more horror.
And so this war went on ten years
And was called the Trojan and was
Ended by a horse.
Were understanding for the most part not
Unhuman, human ears not stopped –
What matter if this Helen was a whore
Or the grandmother of a sturdy line –
Troy would stand now, four times greater
Than our London, Hector had not
Died with bloody genitals, weak Priam’s
Ancient head had not been spewed upon
By dogs, all this nation had not
Perished in the high noon of its manhood.
Quod erat demonstrandum. To be sure
We would not then have had the Iliad.
He sits. Pause.
Edward weeps.
ANNE:
What’s the matter? Do you want water, husband?
KENT:
The king’s unwell. End the sitting.
Parliament is closed.
EDWARD:
What do you see? Look not on me. God grant
Mortimer, thy lips have not lied.
Trouble not yourselves for me. If it appears
That I am out of sorts, then look away. ’Tis but
My cheek gone pale, blood frozen in my brain –
Not more.
Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer.
LANCASTER:
Take this Gaveston from out our sight, my lord.
MORTIMER:
Read here
What we in Parliament have written
For your intent.
ANNE to Edward:
My lord, come to your senses.
’Tis Thursday. ’Tis London.
MORTIMER:
Subscribe:
‘The banishment of Daniel Gaveston, son
Of a meat peddler in the City of London
Banished a year or more ago by the English
Parliament, unlawfully returned and today
Banished for a second time by the English
Parliament.’ My lord! Subscribe!
LANCASTER:
Will’t please you to subscribe, my lord?
ARCHBISHOP:
My lord, will’t please you to subscribe?
GAVESTON:
You did not think, my lord, matters would go so fast.
KENT:
Brother Edward, throw off Gaveston.
MORTIMER:
‘Tis Thursday. ’Tis London. Subscribe.
Lancaster, Archbishop, Lords place a table before the King.
EDWARD:
Never, never, never.
Ere Gaveston be taken from me
I’ll leave this isle.
He tears up the paper.
ARCHBISHOP:
Now is England rent …
LANCASTER:
Much blood shall flow in England now
King Edward.
MORTIMER sings:
Maids of England in your widow’s weeds mourn
For your lovers lost at Bannocksbourn
Cry aheave and aho.
The King of England bids the drums to roll
That no one may hear your mournful dole
With a rom rom below.
EDWARD:
Will you not sing on? Do you look
Upon your king as on some kine to slaughter?
Can a people live so?
Come, Gaveston. I am still here
And have a foot to crush these vipers’ heads.
Exit with Gaveston.
MORTIMER:
This is war.
LANCASTER:
Not all the devils in the deep nor angels overhead
Shall halt the English army till this butcher’s son is dead.
THE BATTLE OF KILLING WORTH (15 AND 16 AUGUST 1320). BATTLEFIELD AT KILLING WORTH
About seven o’clock in the evening.
LANCASTER:
See! The tattered ensign of Saint George
Which swept from the Irish to the Dead Sea.
To arms!
Enter Kent.
KENT:
My lords, of love to this our native land
I come to join with you and leave the King.
My brother since, by his sinful passion
For this Gaveston, he destroys the realm.
ARCHBISHOP:
Thy hand, Kent!
LANCASTER:
March!
Drums.
None be so hardy as to touch the King.
ARCHBISHOP:
A hundred shillings for the head of Gaveston.
They march out.
About eight in the evening.
Marching troops, Edward, Gaveston.
FIRST SOLDIER:
Sire, come, the battle.
EDWARD:
Say on, Gaveston.
GAVESTON:
Many men on London say this war
Will never end.
EDWARD:
Our eye is greatly moved to see thee, Gaveston
At this hour, trusting in us, weaponless
Without defensive steel or leather, bare skinned
Standing before us in accustomed
Irish weeds.
SECOND SOLDIER:
Let’s march, my lord! The battle.
EDWARD:
As thi
s triangle flight of storks in the sky
Though moving yet seems still, still stays
In us thy image untouched by time.
GAVESTON:
My lord, this simple sum a fisherman performs
Before his rest, numbering nets and fish
Counting up the shillings
By his reckoning, will stay
With me for ever while I walk beneath the sun:
That many are more than one and that
This one lives many days but not all days.
Therefore do not stake your heart all on one.
That your heart should not be lost.
THIRD SOLDIER:
Sire, to battle.
EDWARD:
Thy beauteous hair.
Eight in the evening.
GAVESTON:
With these beating drums, bog gulping
Catapults and horses, my mother’s-son’s head
Whirls. Don’t pant! Are all
Now drowned and done for and is there but noise
Hanging now between earth and heaven? Nor will I
Run any more. For there are only minutes left and
I’ll not move a finger but just
Lay me down on the ground here, that I
Endure not until the end of time.
And when tomorrow morning King Edward
Rides by, calling, to torment me: ‘Daniel
Where art thou?’ I’ll not be here. And now
Untie your shoes, Gav, and sit waiting
Here.
Enter Lancaster, Mortimer, Archbishop, lords, soldiers.
LANCASTER:
Upon him, soldiers.
The lords laugh.
Welcome, Lord Chamberlain!
FIRST LORD:
Welcome is the good Earl of Cornwall!
ARCHBISHOP:
Welcome, Lord Abbot!
LANCASTER:
Run you about to cool your villain’s blood
Lord Abbot?
ARCHBISHOP:
Most noble Lords, his trial I think
Is short. His sentence: As Daniel Gaveston
Son of a meat-peddler in the City of London
Was King Edward’s whore, suborning him
To luxury and other crimes
Since double banishment could not restrain him
He shall hang upon a tree. Hang him!
JAMES:
My lords, he will not budge. He’s gone as stiff
As a frozen cod-fish. This is the tree.
Two hempen ropes. He’s fleshy.
MORTIMER aside:
This man, alive, were worth half Scotland
And a man like me had given all
The army for this watery cod-fish. But
Tree, rope and neck are there and blood is cheap.
Now that the catapults, men clinging to them
Have pounded ceaselessly, herds of horses
With men up, startled by drums
Rushed each other, dustclouds and nightfall
Veiled all ways out of the battle
Now the catapults have laboured, drums drummed
Manned troops of horse